Transparency in the Life of a Founder (2020StartUp week1)

I am struggling through a crisis of split personality but I suspect that is obvious to most: am I a corp or am I me? And is there a difference in this world of borderless, international commerce? As I act as CEO of a new startup, must I bury my struggle as an artist and parent? I want to embrace the future and follow the lead of the Snapchat Generation and be transparent with the good, the bad and the ugly. If we expect the cops to wear body cams, then maybe other CEOs and why not politicians and judges; why not me?

The argument raised last night in my new accelerator cohort was a matter of a different philosophy: “Do you want everyone to see your mistakes as a company?”.  If you and the company are inextricable, but I am not subscribing to any of it in this day and age. I learned in this same meeting what CVP stands for in the startup2020 ecosphere: CREDIBILITY VISIBILITY PRODUCTIVITY and as I talk about in detail in my book and here in this and even our official company blog, these are not my strong points so I hope to turn over another leaf and use this cohort to confront, but I have an uphill battle ahead. 

A HS friend writes honestly and vulnerably on her Facebook Feed about her political views, her children, their school and her challenges with their father. Yesterday she noticed that someone high up on the corporate ladder in the hospital where she works had viewed her LinkedIN profile. She panicked wondering if they may have crawled onto her FB page too... 

Isn’t it a given that your boss will see all of your social media if they want to?!? And shouldn’t any partner know what they are getting into? No one should have a real expectation of privacy anymore. 

Another dear, caring, long time friend begs me regularly to take down my videos like this one (and the much more personal ones) where I admit and air my faults. She is certain that no Venture Capitalist in their right mind would invest in me if they saw my social media presence.  I personally suspect that the tools I have built will be so sought after that my root causes for encouraging real collaboration would be irrelevant.  I would love to be wrong. What are the root causes that led me to build these tools? To understand the art of collaboration? To desperately ignore fear and corporate "logic"? I am not allowed to collaborate with my children.

But in the face of this personal challenge, I have pushed through and fought for my rights as a Parent and as a Creative. This has led me to try and build a company that uses cutting edge technology combined with age old storytelling techniques to inject humanity into our online presence. If I can use only sound and light to communicate and collaborate with my teammates, then why not with my children too (without upsetting any "laws" or detectives in Nassau County Long Island...) CollabRjabbR without borders!

As an aside, I want to add in writing a few things I noticed in my cohort meeting and touched on in the video as I record my progress through the accelerator 90 day program:

• My Greatest Fear is that the MVP does not exist.
• I already mentioned that I learned what CVP stands for! I gloss over the V part of this but as I was filling in the required worksheet I realized that one of the huge selling points of this program will be raising the visibility of myself and what I have been practicing in my brand building. Will I remain true and brutal with my pain in public once more people are watching? I hope so, I think it is the only path I have remaining to me and the truth for my CollabRatorS.
• I also learned what GTM stands for and even though I didn't recognize the acronym, I think my team has a go to market strategy covered in the Beyonce/JayZ Pitch Deck and I am looking forward to presenting it fully, disrupting it with Mark and my mentors and then trying it out if I can find the cash to do so (the truth my set me free and may dissuade a majority of VCs but we are not looking for a majority, we are looking for the right kind of investor who sees the vision and knows how to turn it right side out)
• I want Stuart Butterfield to be my mentor.
• The Big Vision is critical in my eyes and so even though everyone is going to want to "focus me in" and "whittle it down" and "prioritize the vision", everyone on the SInDy Team agrees that without the connection to our current Physical Reality, anything we can do in Augmented, Mixed, Extended and Virtual Realities are just light and sound without humanity and mindfulness so they are fragmented and untrue.

Back to the work/life blend for me (outside of the 2020 StartUp requirements) I know the answer: truly three dimensional collaboration includes the bumps and warts that I our company would benefit from hiding but I also wouldn’t want to work with anyone who didn’t know my truth. What will my corporation decide? Tune in to find out.

Disrupt in peace, 

ChuckieJabba.